Dropbox has a bad reputation among Mac users. The program consumes a lot of system resources, even when nothing is happening in the background. When a program is actively used, it can run very slowly for no apparent reason.
Plus, it’s been almost a year now, and Dropbox still doesn’t support Apple’s Silicon Mac. Support will only appear in 2022. This means that owners of the M1 Mac must use the Dropbox app through Rosetta, which is more power hungry and uses up a lot of RAM.
If you’re tired of the hassle of the Dropbox app, you can use alternative services like iCloud. The second option is to use third-party Dropbox clients for Mac. Below we have collected the best of them.
Best Dropbox clients for Mac
- Maestral
- CloudMounter
- Mountain Duck 3
- Transmit 5
- Strongsync
1. Maestral
Maestral is the popular open-source Dropbox client for Mac. The program is free and weighs much less than the official one (40 MB versus 420 MB). With the client, you can easily sync your files and folders in the background without your Mac running slow. In addition, the program officially supports Apple Silicon Mac. Unfortunately, there is no support for Dropbox Paper, as well as settings for shared folders and transferring only changed parts of files.
2. CloudMounter
Program CloudMounter integrates cloud storage Dropbox and Google Drive in the Finder. You can use them like regular local drives. You can search for files, drag and drop and view them. In addition, the program does not sync your files with local drives, which is very convenient if you are low on memory. All your files are encrypted and all files and folders can be conveniently shared by copying the Dropbox link.
3. Mountain Duck 3
Like CloudMounter, Mountain Duck integrates with the Finder and gives you full access to your Dropbox files (or other services) as if it were a local drive. You can store some files offline on local drives. The program displays which files are being synced using small icons. Encryption is available, and you can easily and conveniently copy links to share files.
4. Transmit 5
Program Transmit can be connected to 11 different cloud storage including Dropbox. It is not a direct alternative to the official Dropbox app as it does not sync files in the background. However, this program is faster and has additional useful features.
5. Strongsync
Strongsync is another client that displays cloud storage as a local disk. Files are downloaded only when requested by another program or by you in the Finder. The client supports Dropbox and Dropbox for Business. The program does not require reboots, supports full search, as well as Apple Silicon Mac.
That’s all folks. These were some of the best third-party Dropbox clients for Mac to use in 2022. Do let us know which one are you using or planning to use this year. Do share your thoughts/views via the comment box below.
